Tottenham
House

There have been four
buildings called Tottenham House on this site on the southern edge of
Savernake Forest. The present palladian mansion was built in 1820.

The previous building,
made of brick, was built by Lord Bruce in 1742, and designed by his brother-in-law
the famous architect Lord Burlington.

When a subsequent
Lord Bruce was created 1st Marquess of Ailesbury in 1820, he asked the
architect Thomas Cundy to design a hugely bigger mansion, which was largely
accomplished by building a much larger structure around the old Burlington
house and covering the old bricks with blocks of Bath stone. In 1870 two
large symmetrical wings were added. Tottenham House is a Grade 1 Listed
Building.

Tottenham
House (front)

Facing Tottenham
House, on a hilltop, is the Ailesbury Column, erected in the 1770s to
commemorate the restoration "to perfect health from a long and afflicting
disorder" of his majesty King George III.

The family lived
at Tottenham House until 1940, when they started to share it with the
officers of the large US Army contingent based in Savernake Forest in
preparation for D-Day. After the War ended, the family moved out to a
smaller house on the Estate, and Tottenham House was then leased to Hawtreys
boys school, until that school went bankrupt in 1994. Since then the House
has been leased to the Amber Foundation, a registered charity for unemployed
young people.

Despite the wishes
of the Earl of Cardigan and his father the Marquess of Ailesbury, Tottenham
House and its surrounding Parkland was sold by the Estate's Trustees in
2015. Both Trustees were then asked to resign.